Jennie Jones

I seem to be writing blog posts about my animals and not much else, so here's one about an animal that also includes a human. My daughter. (I know, there was a human in my previous post too, but he isn't my daughter, so...)

Richie and my kid on their first 'meet'

Occasionally we get the odd sighting of our 20 year old kid. More often than not though, we get text messages and telephone calls. All are welcome as far as I'm concerned 💛 At twenty, life is there to be lived. To be worked at through day-job labouring and friendships and fun times. You don't want your parents hanging around too often. Street cred, and all that.

So, this is Richie, Lord McCaw (his new name). He's a 4 year old New Zealand born thoroughbred. He came off the racetrack in New Zealand, found his way to Australia, then found his way to a vet who didn't want to put him down because he kinda had something about him.

Cue my kid wanting another horse. (And yes, he's named after that Richie McCaw since he came into my daughter's life during Rugby Union World Cup last year and of course, my husband is a Kiwi...)

She found two horses that were free to good persons. She saw Richie first and something fired inside. But she was correctly persuaded to go see the other one, which might have better horsey options. Nope, she wanted to go back to see the first one.

The deal was sealed. There was something between them that could not be denied. So the horse with very poor prospects at living much longer went home with my kid.

Photo credit: About to Snap Photography

He is tall! Really tall. This is non horsey-speak (I don't do real horse-talk unless supervised) but he is really tall and getting taller. However, he is also very calm. Thank God, because the last horse was, on occasions, and although gorgeous, the epitome of not-quite-as-calm-as-we'd-all-hoped.

Clear round in 60 and 70 cm jumps

Patiently waiting his turn

The images above are of my daughter riding Richie at only his second jumping event. This one was organised as a fun event for an extremely worthy fundraising cause. He was so cool! So tall, and so cool. He cleared 60 and 70 without an issue and will head for 80cm jumps next event. ​

The other day, he jumped a 1.3 metre gate from a standstill. Quite impressive, so the horsey people tell me. Did I tell you he's really tall? And cool. Let's not forget that cool part, because my kid is on his back! Stay cool, Richie.